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THE MEDIA AFRICA ANNUAL_digital

Sehortun Afcira 39
“Print is mostly preferred by the
working class or people from the
low density areas and suffers from a
critical challenge: Zambians have
an undeveloped reading culture.
Newspapers are quite expensive
and don’t have a vast coverage,”
explains Jennifer Kachabe,
JCDecaux’s General Manager in
Zambia.
The politically outspoken The
Post, an independent tabloid-style
daily is the biggest selling daily. It’s
distributed nationally, along with
government-owned The Times of
Zambia and the Daily Mail. The
Daily Nation, an independent
daily, is distributed in Lusaka only,
while the Kavindula Newspaper is a
community newspaper.
The Saturday Post and Sunday
Post are the most popular weeklies,
with The Sunday Times, Sunday
Mail, Guardian and The Monitor all
vying for readership. The Bulletin
and Record, a lifestyle and business
monthly is the most prominent and
long-lived magazine.
More Zambians are tapping
into the power of the internet, as
evidenced by various blogs, social
posts and newsfeeds. About 77%
of Zambians have mobile phone
access, and about 2.6m have
access to the internet – 98% of them
accessing it via their mobile devices.
Multinational companies have a
firm foothold in Zambia’s developing
advertising and marketing sector
yet, according to African Media
Barometer, Zambia’s advertising
market, is not large enough to
support a diversity of media, resulting
in different media houses competing
for limited resources from the same
revenue sources.
Alliance Media’s Sales Director
for sub-Saharan Africa, Lara Nahon,
points out that all the major brands
use outdoor as a large and effective
part of the media mix, “OOH is more
relevant than ever in Africa and is
relatively cheap compared with
other mediums.” n
ZAMBIA FAST FACTS
Population: 15 066 266, Urban: 40.9%
of total population
(2015)
Age
structure:
0-14 years: 46.12%, 15-24
years: 20.02%, 25-54 years:
28.6%, 55-64 years: 2.89%,
65 years and over: 2.38%
Ethnic
groups:
African (inc Bemba,
Tonga, Chewsa, Lozi,
Nsenga, Tumbuka):
99.5%; European and
other: 0.5%
Languages: English (official); major
vernaculars: Bemba,
Kaonda, Lozi, Lunda,
Luvale, Nyanja, Tonga,
plus some 70 other
indigenous languages
Literacy: 15+ read/write: total:
61.4%
Income: Share of income of
highest 10%: 38.8%;
Under poverty line: 64.0%
Internet users: 2 313 013
Internet
15.80%
penetration:
Source OMG Africa September 2015
Radio is the strongest
broadcast medium in
the country with 45
stations reaching 75%
of Zambia’s population
of about 16 million.